Hannah Messinger: Deep-dish pizza a double delight

Mar. 26, 2013

Bake deep-dish pizza in a cast iron skillet. / submitted

Written by

Hannah Messinger

nothingbutdelicious.blogspot.com

ABOUT

Hannah Messinger comes from a very food-centric family that has owned and run The Mt. Vernon Restaurant in Chattanooga since the 1950s. She works in Nashville as a food writer, stylist and photographer. You can see more of her work at http://nothingbutdelicious.blogspot.com.

Toppings

An amazing pizza topping combination is as follows — one yellow onion, caramelized with a splash of balsamic vinegar, mozzarella, roasted sweet potato, crispy chicken skin, red pepper flakes and parsley. Cheap as dirt! Check out my Instagram (hmmessinger) to see a different pizza every week.

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Every Sunday I make two pizza doughs. The first I bake that night and top with intention: sausage and onions, margherita or pepperoni and cheese. The second I squirrel away in my fridge, to sit and wait until an evening when I am underprepared for dinner. Perhaps it’s because the yeast has lead a longer and fuller life, or because it is proud to be the base of a more unique pizza, but my second ball of dough always bakes up to be crispier and more flavorful than the first.

Deep-dish pizza is an ideal receptacle for odds and ends. Ingredients that would have spoiled before being used somehow come together in perfect harmony on the top of a pizza: a couple handfuls of mozzarella, an ounce of chevre, the tail-end of a red onion, sliced paper thin, the stems of rainbow chard, boiled until tender, and a few pieces of proscuitto, fried and crispy.

Just as my second ball of dough has been patient in waiting for me, I prepare it with patience, taking great care neither to smother nor to rush it. I dress it modestly with three tablespoons of red sauce and I let the sauce just barely peek through the other toppings. With the exception of onions, or possibly a few leaves of spinach or herbs, I never use raw toppings. Raw vegetables such as tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant have a high water content and will sweat and make the pizza soggy.

I do distribute one topping with reckless abandon, and that ingredient is cheese. Letting cheese overflow down the sides of the crust results in something quite magical. As the menu reads at my all-time favorite deep-dish pizza restaurant, Pequod’s, “The overflowing cheese emerges from the oven as a halo of caramelized crust.”

* That is, 500g flour and 300g water. You can use whatever kind of glutinous flour you like. I use 1 1/2 cups bread flour for its high gluten content, 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour for its flavor and 1/3 cup cornmeal or semolina, which helps crisp the crust.

1. Bloom yeast in water. Mix all ingredients by hand until a ball forms. If you have a stand mixer, use the dough hook to knead dough for 7-10 minutes. If not, knead until you can stretch it into a windowpane shape without breaking it.

2. Roll dough in oil and place it in a bowl. Let it sit in a warm place, covered in plastic wrap, for one hour, where it will rise. Cut dough into two pieces, storing one in an airtight container in your fridge.

3. Preheat oven to as hot as it will possibly go, with the rack as low down as it will possibly go. Lightly grease a 10-inch or 12-inch cast iron skillet with butter. Use your knuckles to press dough evenly into pan, and give the crust a coat of butter, as well. Let dough rest for 15 minutes.

4. Top as desired and bake for 15-20 minutes. When pizza is done, let rest 10-15 minutes more before cutting.

To use the second batch: Remove dough from fridge two hours before cooking, or simply set it on the counter in the morning and it will be ready that night.

If, for some reason, be it the dough or the oven or fate working against you, your pizza does not get crispy on the bottom, do not fret. Call it “skillet bread” and enjoy.